


Only the Bones

by fluffymusketeer



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Brief Mentions of Suicidal Thoughts, Canon Universe, Ereri Canonverse Week 2018, Fanart, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 02:57:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffymusketeer/pseuds/fluffymusketeer
Summary: Many years after the earth rumbling destroyed humanity, Levi is close to giving up.Written in response to the prompts ‘Post-War’ and ‘Amnesia’ for Ereri Canonverse Week 2018. Manga Spoilers.





	Only the Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisgirlsays22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisgirlsays22/gifts).



> Aer, I’m gifting this to you because at heart it's a story about people having faith in each other. I feel this has also been an important part of our friendship lately, so I wanted to thank you for your unwavering support and kindness even though I can be a pain in the ass. I don’t really have the words to express how much I appreciate it, so here have this instead <333
> 
> My deepest thanks to [stalrua](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stalrua/pseuds/stalrua) for beta reading for me. Your help, reassurance, and advice was very much appreciated! Please everyone go check out her awesome writing, we’re lucky to have such a talented writer in the ereri fandom ^o^
> 
> Okay onwards! I’ve missed writing these two a whole bunch so I hope everyone enjoys.
> 
> EDIT: This fic now has amazing fan art by Bianca! Thank you so much Aer & Sara for the beautiful gift <3

**Only the Bones**

 [](https://omglevixeren.tumblr.com/post/181303934587/merry-early-christmas-fluffymusketeer-stalrua)

 

Sometimes the emptiness gets to Levi.

The never-ending horizons of grass and sky, the rubble of old settlements even memories have left behind… and the bones. Always the bones. Giant ribs reaching for the clouds, femurs stretching across the landscape, skulls one could shelter from storms in.

He has travelled for hundreds of miles, and their skeletons scar the world.

Occasionally he’ll oil up his old manoeuvre gear and use them for target practice, noting absent-mindedly which of his skills have gotten rusty and which still feel instinctual.

And when he can no longer bring himself to trim his hair or wash under his armpits, whenever he feels like he might make himself some rope and have a go at ending all this for good, he visits Eren.

Eren’s crystal sits in the knave of an old village church, one that used to be dedicated to the wall goddesses. Levi’s not entirely sure why he dragged this big ass lump of inert rock here all those years ago, sweating and cursing with the effort. For the irony, probably. Now that the years have mellowed him, he can allow himself to be happy that Eren is sheltered from the elements, which are slowly scratching away at the last remnants of the living world. His anger still burns on occasion, but it has faded. Levi has accepted that Eren will never wake up. There will never be any answers.

The church is looking a bit worse for wear these days. Levi peers up at the broken rafters and roosting pigeons, the overcast skies beyond signalling the turning of the seasons. Has it really been a year since the storm that tore through the church roof?

Time is a funny old thing.

Levi spreads his scratchy cloak over one of the pews to dry and dumps his travelling sack in a corner to be sorted out later. He should probably nock an arrow and shoot down one of the pigeons for his dinner, but those last twenty miles today really took it out of him, and his ankle is screaming for elevation and rest.

“Hello Eren,” he mutters as he lies down on one of the pews and closes his eyes with exhaustion. “Been a while.”

The reedy whistling of the wind through the storm-damaged church is his only answer, and he pulls his sleeves down over his hands to stave off the chill. His ankle is throbbing, the pain working its way up his leg. He debates whether or not it’s time to make himself a walking stick. The thought pains him, and not just in his leg, since he’s been putting it off for a while. Just one more year, he sometimes tells himself, you can carry on for one more year, this year will be the year you’ll find a survivor…

“Thinking of making myself a walking stick,” Levi says aloud. He is struck by a vivid image of himself hobbling around with his pathetic stick in the vast empty world for years to come. “Yeah, I know,” he concedes with a weary sigh. “You don’t have to say it.”

He cracks open one eyelid.

Eren is curled up inside his crystal like always, tucked in that fragile foetal position, arms wrapped around his head as if in protection. Whatever angle Levi uses to try to see through the translucent blue crystal – and he’s tried them all – he cannot see Eren’s face. The cruellest irony of all.

“But you _could_ say it. If you wanted to. Don’t let me stop you.”

He imagines Eren as he was at sixteen after he’d lost that youthful hero worship, making a sly comment about old timers, face flushed with his own daring.

“Fuck this,” Levi mutters, turning away from the sight of Eren curled in his endless pitiful ball, trapped in his eternal crystal. “Night, asshole. Make yourself useful and catch me a pigeon while I’m asleep.”

 

 

Eren doesn’t deign to wake up, so Levi catches his own pigeon for breakfast.

Washing up afterwards in a nearby stream, he eyes the surrounding trees critically. He has a good enough idea of which ones might work, having been through the trial and error of making himself a hunting bow and arrows years ago, when he’d finally gotten bored of moping over tinned peaches. He’s not proud of how long he spent waiting to die, but he got over it, and his bow and arrows were the result.

Levi snaps off a couple of sturdy looking branches from a healthy oak with a well-aimed kick and heads back to the church to begin whittling.

He catches Eren up on the last six months as the pile of wood shavings grows at his feet. “Had to kill a pack of wolves,” he says, voice echoing down towards the chancel. “Little shits picked a fight. I saved one of the skins, should do well for winter clothes.” He carves off a knot of wood, and it clinks onto the flagstones. “Oh, it snowed again in the spring. Pain in the backside, if you ask me, but you’d have liked it. Everything went quiet.” His lip quirks in amusement. “Quieter than usual, anyway.”

Levi only has so many words in him. After a few hours of working on the branches, and pretending to have a conversation with what may as well be a dead body, he sighs and leans back on the pew.

“I’m tired now, Eren,” Levi says quietly. “I’m ready for it to be over.”

He blinks a bit, eyes watery with exhaustion, and fishes around in his pocket for a handkerchief.

“Why did you do this to me?”

Levi shakes his head at himself. No point going down that road again. The surface of the crystal is scarred with the chips and slashes of a blunt blade, evidence of recriminations screamed into the void. Still Eren remains frozen, wild hair caught forever in a messy bun, clothes torn and ragged, face hidden eternally. Still he lies caught inside his layers of crystal. Levi realised long ago he was conversing with a brick wall. Eren does not care. Eren will not wake up.

“This might be my last visit,” Levi admits.

Then he buries his face in his hands and cries.

It doesn’t really matter how ugly and pathetic he looks, because there’s no one around to see him lose his shit, and there never will be again.

 

 

Of course, things never quite pan out as Levi expects them, even in a world where nothing changes.

A few weeks later he’s practising with his new walking sticks out in the graveyard when he hears the _almightiest_ crack. It sounds like a thousand windows shattering at once.

As terrified pigeons scatter into the grey skies, Levi goes rigid, old reflexes sharpening. “The fuck?”

Goddammit, he only has his knife on him, strapped to his thigh like always. The rest of his weapons are inside the church. He’s instinctively searching the horizon for enemies when he hears it—probably the saddest sound he’s _ever_ heard, a heartbroken wail ripped from the throat of someone in deep pain.

Fucking hell, is that—a _person?_ Is that—

“Eren!”

It has to be. _It has to be!_

Levi hobbles inside the church as fast as his walking sticks can carry him, heart pounding.

The church floor and surrounding pews are covered in a thin sparkling layer of crystal shards. There in the middle of it all lies a shaking, sobbing Eren.

After all these years, the sight is almost anticlimactic, though Levi's stomach still churns. He had given up. Truly, he had no hope left. And yet here Eren is, just like that.

He's even covered in blood and filth from the final battle.

Levi props his sticks upon a pew, kicks as much of the shattered crystal out of the way as he can, and gets on his knees beside Eren.

“Hey, Eren,” he says. “It’s me. Can you hear me?”

The sobs grow deeper, more wretched. Eren is distraught, hiding his face in his hands, curled into a protective ball. Levi begins to realise this is how Eren must have entered the crystal, in the midst of some unfathomable pain. Despite everything, his heart breaks a little.

“Oi,” he says softly, and finally pats Eren’s back a couple of times. “Enough of that. It’s alright now. You’re safe.” It is very far from alright of course, Levi thinks bleakly, but it’s the best he can do. Words are not his strong point, and being alone for so long hasn’t exactly helped.

Eren shifts all of a sudden and practically climbs into Levi’s lap. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s sobbing over and over again in a distressed voice. Levi doesn’t know how to feel about that, given everything. Slightly sick, if he’s honest.

He also doesn’t know how to feel about the sensation of a living human body pressing up to him after so long. His eyelids slip shut involuntarily at the heady warmth. “Shhh,” he murmurs, at a complete loss. Eren’s body is heavy atop his own. It’s a bit ridiculous; they’re basically cuddling.

After a few sniffles, Eren looks up. “Levi?”

It’s the first time Levi has seen another human face in fifteen years.

About fifteen seconds later, he pulls back his fist and punches that face. Hard.

Eren goes sprawling across the flagstone floor with a surprised grunt, scattering broken crystal. “Wha—?”

Levi feels overwhelmed by his own emotions. His leg is drawn back, poised for a swift kick to the gut, but the pitiful way Eren waves his hand an attempt to protect himself takes the wind out of Levi’s sails. He lowers his foot, unsure what to do with his anger.

It spills out in words. “What did you do, Eren?” he shouts. “What the fuck did you do?”

He knows he should calm down because damn it, Eren actually looks _frightened_ , but still the words won’t stop.

“How could you?” Levi asks bitterly. “How could you _do_ this?”

He grabs Eren by the throat, forcing his head up to look Levi in the eye. _I’m so furious with you_. It’s not until Eren is scrabbling at his jugular and gasping for air that Levi realises what he is doing. He drops Eren like a sack of potatoes. First human interaction in over a decade, and Levi nearly throttles him. Great.

Eren has begun to cry again, tears running down his cheeks, and Levi’s chest twists with regret. _I made him cry_. He flops down in a pew with an exhausted huff, the fury draining away, replaced with something like melancholy. He rubs at his tired eyes. Would it be hypocritical at this point to ask for another hug? He’s been so lonely.

“You’re angry,” Eren whispers, sitting on the cold flagstones and holding his bleeding cheek. “What did I do?”

The plaintive look he sends Levi from his non-swollen eye is crushing. Levi finds he doesn’t have the heart to tell Eren just yet. Let him linger in ignorance, just a little while longer.

“Do you want something to eat?” Levi asks, pushing himself up despite creaking bones. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? Need to take a shit?”

“Levi, what did I do?” Eren asks again.

Levi pauses en route to his emergency food store at the back of the church. “The question is, Eren—” he glances over his shoulder “—what didn’t you do?”

 

 

Eren doesn’t remember.

Levi’s been watching him for two days now, trying to work out what’s going on, and he finally understands. Whatever happened to Eren in that final battle, whatever unbearable distress that triggered the destruction of the world, Eren doesn’t remember it.

It’s in the polite yet distant way he tiptoes around Levi, the open confusion laid bare in his big eyes when he examines the tumbledown church, the curious glances he shoots Levi’s way when he thinks Levi isn’t looking, taking in the greying hair, the crow’s feet, the newly-hewn walking sticks.

Eren doesn’t remember.

It takes three days for Eren to leave the church. Levi’s pretty sure he’s been avoiding it. _It’s because you know what you’ll find, isn’t it? You know what you did, deep down._ He stumbles across Eren out in the graveyard, propped heavily against a tombstone, staring at the carcass of the colossal titan which dissects the village. It is lying where it had presumably fallen long ago, crushing cottages and farmhouses beneath it.

Levi hands him a lukewarm cup of nettle tea.

Eren whispers, “What happened here?”

Levi sips his own cup of tea. “I’m no military police stooge,” he says mildly, “but I think _that_ titan—” he points at the enormous skeleton “—fell onto this village.”

“Please don’t joke,” Eren says. “I’m not in the mood.”

Levi runs his palms down his face, tired. He hasn’t been sleeping well since Eren awakened. “Alright,” he says. “Look. The truth is, I don’t know. Only what I’ve been able to piece together. I remember standing on the harbour, the warships on the horizon. I remember seeing you and the others transform.” Levi waves his hand over his head. “After that it’s just flashes. Blood, screams. And then… and then I woke up.”

“What do you mean?” Eren’s gaze is fixed on the carcass of the colossal titan, a faraway, thoughtful expression as if he’s trying to put together the jigsaw inside his head.

Levi purses his lips. “I was in a crystal too.”

“That doesn’t make—”

“Yes, I _know_ ,” Levi interrupts. “Of course it doesn’t make any fucking sense. But I know what I experienced. I woke up surrounded by shattered crystal, still on the goddamn beach, and there you were trapped in your own crystal about ten feet away from me. And the world looked like this.” He gestures to the remains of the colossal titan. "Not sure when they stopped moving and started rotting, though. We must have been stuck in those crystals quite a while."

“I don’t understand.” Eren is frowning, holding onto the nettle tea as if it will ground him. He’s chewing his lip.

Levi peers at the side of Eren’s head, patience wearing thin. “What do you mean you don’t understand? Did the self-incarceration dissolve your last few brain cells?”

“Self—?”

“The _rumbling_ happened,” Levi snaps. “Don’t you get it, Eren? This is the world now. It’s over. You ended it.” He stares at his own tea, gone depressingly cold. “Except for me, apparently. Thanks, by the way. These last fifteen years of soul-crushing solitude really did wonders for my outlook on life.”

“I—what—” Eren goes rigid. “ _No_.”

“Right. Well.” Levi tips the dregs of his cold tea onto the damp grass. “While you mope around figuring your shit out, I have things to do. I’ll be inside.”

It’s the denial he can’t take. _You’re the only one who could have done this, Eren!_ he wants to scream. The logic is simple. The world is littered with the decaying remains of thousands upon thousands of colossal titans, and not a single soul is left alive. Levi _knows_ , he’s _looked_. But it’s always just the bones, only ever the bones. Ergo, the rumbling happened, the human race was destroyed, and since Eren was the only one who had that power, he did it.

_Whether he remembers it or not._

By the time Levi gets a hold of his temper and heads back outside with a peace offering in the form of leftover pigeon and wild garlic stew, evening has fallen, and Eren has disappeared. Damn it.

After a cursory search offers no clues as to Eren’s whereabouts, Levi settles down on the stone wall of the churchyard to eat a second bowl of stew.

He feels too downhearted to eat really, but he hates letting things go to waste.

 

 

Days later, Eren comes marching back into the church. He has deep red shifter lines fanning out across his sharp cheekbones.

Levi stares at them, disturbed. There’s a wildness in Eren's eyes, a nervous energy and building determination which hadn’t been there before. Levi stops fletching his arrows, putting them to one side so he can meet the outburst head on.

Eren points at him, eyes glittering. “I didn’t do this.”

“Oh, so you’ve been taking a tour of the scenery,” Levi remarks archly. “Thanks for the heads up. It’s been real fun sitting here not knowing what the hell happened to you. Again.”

“I didn’t _do_ this.”

Levi crosses his arms. “So what happened then?”

Eren’s determination doesn’t waver. “I don’t remember.”

“You have got to be kidding me. That’s what you’re going with?” Levi contemplates snapping some of his carefully-fletched arrows in half and chucking them at Eren’s head.

“I’m going to find out what happened.” Eren’s gaze drifts to Levi’s backpack. “You can come with me if you want.”

Levi scowls.

“Or not,” Eren continues with a shrug.

 _Oh, he’s in fine form today,_ Levi thinks. “You know, it’s a good job you waited fifteen years to break out of that crystal,” he says. “Any earlier and I might actually have killed you.”

That shuts Eren up.

For a few seconds, anyway. “You really think I did this?”

“Yes.”

Eren stares at him. “Then I’ll prove to you I didn’t.”

“You don’t fucking remember!” Levi explodes. “How the fuck are you going to prove it to me? You are the _only_ one who could have done this. The evidence speaks for itself, Eren!”

“No, you see, because—”

“Shut up!” Levi gets to his feet and starts limping out of the church, ankle sore with all the chilly drafts.

Eren frowns. “Levi—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Eren!” he snaps. “I mean it. Leave me alone.”

 

 

Later, Eren finds him outside, still brooding. He hops up to sit on the church wall alongside Levi, a careful two feet of distance between them. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going,” he says.

Levi rolls his eyes.

“Is there really no one left alive?” Eren asks quietly. “Not even across the ocean?”

“No one’s left.” Levi thinks of all the years of wandering and searching, until he finally gave up. “They’re all gone. Just me.”  _You did a thorough job._

“Why just you?” Eren swings his feet above the tangled weeds below.

“You tell me, Eren.”

Covertly, Levi studies the fading shifter lines. He’s not sure why he finds them so unsettling. Perhaps because they highlight so starkly the gaps in his _own_ memory. There had been a plan, a plan for the final battle… Eren was to obtain all the shifters. Levi and Mikasa had been in charge of driving them towards him, preferably without the Marleyan forces noticing their tactics.

Did any of it work at all? Was the rumbling a kind of scorched-earth last resort when their plan unravelled, or did Eren and Zeke intend to betray humanity all along? Levi has no idea. The battle is just an empty black void in his mind.

“Thank you for looking after me,” Eren says abruptly, glancing over his shoulder at the church. “Well, my crystal anyway.”

“It was a way to pass the time.”

Eren sighs. “Fine. I’m leaving.”

“Of course you are.”

Eren folds his legs up on the uneven stones so he can turn and glare at the side of Levi’s head. “I need to know what happened, and I’m not going to find answers in a ruined village at the back end of Wall Maria,” he says. “I’m not sure how many shifter powers I have now, or how long I have left, but I have to try. If the world ended, I have to find a way to fix it.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” To think Levi used to be positively _drawn_ to such idealistic claptrap!

“Alright,” Eren says. “If you don’t want to help me, then don’t. But I’m taking your spare travel pack.”

“There’s a hole in the bottom,” Levi points out.

Eren huffs. “Then I’ll sew it up.”

“Tch, with your needlework?” Levi crosses his arms. “Good fucking luck.”

“Argh!” Eren jumps down off the wall. “You are so annoying!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Eren storms back inside.

Levi hunches in on himself, fuming. He knows his recalcitrance is frustrating Eren. Can even understand why Eren is so gung-ho about heading off to fix things. Unlike Levi, Eren hasn’t had fifteen years of accepting the reality of the world. None of it stops Levi from being annoyed.

Half an hour later Eren stalks back out, apparently having helped himself to a whole bunch of Levi’s supplies. He pauses at the rusting gate to the graveyard. “I’m going to start at the harbour,” he announces.

“Good luck. It’s about a hundred miles that way—” Levi points over his shoulder “—and don’t bother trying to find a horse, they all went wild long before we woke up.”

“Whatever,” Eren mutters, dismissing Levi with a rude gesture. “Enjoy your stupid old church.”

“Enjoy your... blisters!” Levi shouts at his retreating back.

Eren disappears from sight.

Levi puts his head in his hands and groans. _Goddammit._

He heads back inside and stews for about an hour, alternating between glaring at his backpack on the one hand and making grandiose plans to fix up his ‘stupid old church’ on the other. Then he notices Eren has not thought to take the bow and arrows with him, or apparently any hunting gear at all, not even a knife, and he thinks, _so what is the dumb brat planning to eat?_

Levi pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a noise of frustration. At Eren, at himself, at life in general.

“For fuck’s sake.”

He starts to gather his travel gear.

 

 

Levi catches up with Eren by nightfall.

Eren is many things, but he’s not subtle. Sitting propped against the splintered femur of a colossal titan as if it’s no more than a fallen tree, he’s fumbling around skinning and gutting a baby rabbit by hand, slowly peeling off its skin inch-by-laborious-inch, fresh blood staining his forearms deep red.

It’s clear Eren has been waiting for him. He’s seen Eren skin rabbits a thousand times – _Levi taught him how_ – and this dithering is ridiculous.

No, not subtle at all. In hindsight, all the signs of Eren’s betrayal were just as hamfistedly obvious, and Levi should have spotted it a mile away. Alas, he reflects, trust is a bit like the stained glass window in his old church. It distorts all beyond it.

“Been taking your time, I see.” He drops his pack at Eren’s feet.

“Just admiring the view,” Eren replies, focused on his rabbit.

Levi snorts. “So much for marching straight to the ocean to get your answers.”

“So much for sulking in your ruined church forever.”

Leaning back against the enormous leg bone, Levi closes his eyes, too tired to start bickering like five year olds. Truthfully, he’d moved rather faster than he’s accustomed to in order to catch up with Eren. He’s going to pay for it tomorrow.

“Thank you,” Eren murmurs.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Levi says, handing Eren a knife.

“Right.”

 

 

They follow the old railroad, now nothing but a relic of mouldering wooden sleepers and sprawls of crawling weeds between the tracks. “I still remember when you kids helped build this.” Levi kicks at a thicket of grass. “Now it looks as if these tracks were laid a century ago.”

This has been Levi’s regular route between the towns of the old walls and the harbour at the ocean ever since he woke up. He can navigate well enough using the stars or the sun, if he has to, but there seems little point doing that when there is a convenient railroad to follow.

Even with the walking sticks, the trek will take Levi at least a few weeks, likely longer. It’s a far cry from making the journey on horseback, but he wasn’t lying to Eren when he said all the horses went wild.

Before his ankle started to seriously pain him, Levi had donned his gear and attempted to ensnare a couple so he could train them, but they were stubborn and Levi grew frustrated. An Isabel or a Sasha might have had the knowledge and interest to begin domesticating horses once again, but Levi didn’t know what he was doing.

Several years later, an abandoned foal took to following him around after he’d thrown it some sugar lumps. He’d had hope, but it sickened and died that winter, its start in life sadly too harsh for mere sugar to remedy.

Walking isn’t so bad though. It’s not like Levi has any deadlines to keep.

After a few days of stilted conversation, Eren begins to pepper him with questions. What does Levi do with his time? How often has he been over to Marley? Did he make it as far as Liberio? Is Annie’s crystal still around? Eren’s features crease with deep thought as he catalogues Levi’s answers and tries to make sense of the new world as quickly as possible.

Levi can tell he is looking for chinks in the armour of Levi’s logic, any cracks Eren might worm into to bolster his argument that he didn’t unleash the wall titans upon countless innocent lives.

Eventually, he runs out of grand questions about history and cartography. As Eren chews his lip and watches Levi pick some ripe apples from a nearby tree, he asks, “Um, why are there so many apple trees?”

Levi tips the apples into his pack. “Because I planted them.”

Eren looks at the trees, growing at regular intervals along the railroad, stretching off towards the horizon. “You planted them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s common sense!” Levi crosses his arms. The way Eren is looking at him makes him feel oddly defensive. “I walk this route twice a year, and it was less labour intensive than digging a fucking vegetable patch.”

“Okay.” Eren holds his hands up for peace. “Sorry I asked.”

A few miles later, the way Eren is skimming his hands curiously through the low-hanging leaves of the trees is beginning to get on Levi’s last nerve. “What is it, Eren?” he snaps.

“Nothing.”

“Pretty sure I can still kick your—”

“It’s just—” Eren glances back at him, looking contemplative “—you grew an orchard.”

Levi scoffs. “I’d hardly call it an orchard.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Eren replies. “Anyone else in your situation would… well, I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. But you? You just planted trees.”

Levi glances at one of the trees, utterly befuddled. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s kind of funny, I guess. You looked at all this death, and instead of deciding to give up and add to it, you made life. You grew an orchard.” Eren shrugs up ahead. “Just makes me think, that’s all.”

Levi finds he has no reply to that.

The next day, Eren announces he’s going to figure out what titan shifters he is currently in possession of. “I’m still weak from so long in the crystal,” he tells Levi. “I’d offer you a ride, but my transformations are probably gonna be all screwed up.”

“Its fine, Eren,” Levi replies, admittedly curious himself.

The weather is gentle, a light breeze making the air taste fresh, and as Levi limps along, he finds it pleasantly nostalgic to have Eren’s titan romping around behind him like the old days.

 

 

Levi is reminded on an unfortunately regular basis that his body is beginning to fall apart after years of abuse. He’s gotten used to stumbling like a moron, so when he goes flying due to an unnoticed molehill, landing with an audible _thud_ and the wind getting knocked out of him, he doesn’t think much of it. Just curses at himself as the contents of his travelling pack – wooden arrows and dried biscuits and the apples he’s been diligently picking — go scattering all over the damp morning grass. “Fucking hell,” he mutters. “You stupid old idiot.”

“ _Levi!_ ”

Shit.

“Don’t even think about it, Eren,” Levi snaps, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m perfectly fine. I just have a bad ankle, that’s all.”

He picks himself up off the ground and shoots a murderous scowl at the mound of dirt. Eren hovers nearby, fretting over the spilled contents of Levi’s backpack in the absence of anything else to do.

Levi tests his ankle, rubbing it and flexing his foot. It’s sprained, but nothing more serious. He’s contemplating choking down his own pride and asking Eren for a hand up when he hears a startled gasp behind him.

“You have manoeuvre gear?” Eren is holding the straps in his arms as if they are a newborn child, fragile and precious.

“Of course I do.”

“Can I try it out?” Eren hugs the gear to his chest and gives Levi a pathetic look of hope.

“I don’t have enough gas for you to go larking about like a cadet,” he grouches. _We’ll just ignore all the times I did exactly that out of boredom._ “I keep the spare gas at the harbour. You’ll have to wait.”

Eren looks crestfallen.

Levi reaches for his walking sticks, immune.

 

 

Half a day of pouting, and Levi cracks like an egg.

“ _Please,_ ” he hears for the fiftieth time.

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Levi throws his arms in the air. “Alright! Fine _._ You are such a pain in my ass.”

“Yes!”

They trek over to the nearest colossal titan skeleton – it’s not hard, the landscape is littered with them – and find a convenient jumble of bones sticking up into the sky for Eren to whet his appetite on. Levi settles on the grass to watch while Eren adjusts the gear. He tries not to be annoyed by how much Eren has to let the straps out and instead focuses on propping his ankle up for some much-needed rest.

“I never imagined I’d get to do this again.” There is reverence in Eren’s eyes. “I thought maybe once I’d got all the shifters and went into the crystal, I’d spend the rest of eternity dreaming about it. Well, I hoped anyway…” He trails off, looking sad. “I guess now I know there are no dreams inside the crystal.”

Levi finds himself pleased that he filled his gas canisters at the church before chasing after Eren. “Knock yourself out then,” he says, rustling around in his backpack for an apple and a knife.

Eren sprints off towards the skeleton with a whoop, swooping up into the air with a puff of gas. Levi shakes his head. Still just a teenager at heart.

He slices up his apple, observing with a critical eye as Eren practices manoeuvres in the distance, brandishing imaginary blades to attack the napes of invisible enemies. In truth, after the reclamation of Wall Maria, Eren’s training was focused on mastering his strengths as a titan shifter, and not the manoeuvre gear. It shows.

Maybe Levi should have been a better superior. Maybe none of this would have happened if Levi hadn’t been stuck inside his own worries and taken more notice of Eren. Maybe he should have forced Eren out more — just the two of them — for occasional jaunts through the woods to remind Eren that there were joys in this world worth fighting for besides victory.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He takes another bite, the tangy sweetness of the fruit rich across his tongue. It’s all too late now anyway, and Levi feels every bit of his fifty or so years, especially watching Eren flit about in manoeuvre gear while Levi has his swollen ankle propped up like an invalid.

If Levi is reminded how he is getting old on occasion, then Eren must surely be reminded how young he is on occasion too. Levi sees it coming a mile off. _His balance is all over the place_ , he thinks idly. _Surely he’s not about to attempt—oh, he is. What a moron._

Eren’s startled yell as his grapple arcs out into thin air instead instead of hooking into a bone is almost amusing. The almighty splintering of the rib cage as an out-of-control Eren hurtles through it like a cannonball is _definitely_ amusing.

A cloud of debris mushrooms up into the sky, the result of half a tonne of colossal titan collapsing in one fell swoop.

Levi covers his mouth to prevent a snigger.

Eren’s titan crawls out of the wreckage, shaking the dust out of its hair like a befuddled dog. It falls on its face in a heap.

Levi heads over to find Eren tugging his wrists loose of the sinewy connecting tissue. “You utter buffoon,” he says, laughing.

“I’m out of practice,” Eren replies defensively.

“Clearly.”

Eren tumbles off his titan in a mess of gangly limbs. Levi grabs his arm to pull him up, still chuckling. As they make their way to the backpacks, Eren steaming from healing cuts, Levi can’t resist. He cuts a sly glance at Eren. “Reminds me of that time you and Jean got drunk—”

“Oh, I _knew_ you were gonna bring that up!” Eren peers up at the sky. “Will I never live it down?”

As they get back to their packs, the jovial mood falters. Falling into old rhythms forged through years of comradeship is almost too easy, and it’s like they both suddenly remember where they are. Eren begins loosening his straps, awkwardly fumbling with the buckles while refusing to meet Levi’s gaze.

Levi is frozen with momentary indecision—oh, what the hell.

He clears his throat. “When we get to the harbour, we can put together a set of gear for you.” He fusses with his arrows, straightening them in the sheath. “There’s probably some old stuff stored in the warehouses we can use.”

Eren doesn’t answer. Levi turns to check he’s heard, annoyed that his olive branch has apparently been carried off by the wind or something. What he finds is a furiously flushed Eren on the verge of tears.

Levi turns his attention back to the arrows. “It’d be nice to have someone to practice with again,” he admits.

“Y-yeah,” Eren says after a pause. “Yeah, okay.”

That’s enough emotion for one day, Levi decides, feeling a bit out of sorts himself. He grabs his arrows and his walking stick and announces that he’s off to shoot something for dinner.

 

 

It’s the middle of the night when Levi startles out of a nightmare, only to find the campfire has died down to glowing embers, and his wayward travelling companion is nowhere in sight.

Levi eyes the empty bedroll, unsettled. “Eren?” he calls into the darkness.

When he gets no answer, he resigns himself to wakefulness and douses a handkerchief with oil for a makeshift torch. The bone pile seems as good a place as any to try first.

Disoriented by the darkness, Levi trips over unkempt tufts of grass. He’s grumbling under his breath and cursing at life in general, annoyed by the inconvenience of it all, when really he should have been paying more attention.

He rounds the crumbled skull of the colossal titan and gets one of the more unexpected shocks of his life.

“Argh!” Eren yelps, covering his crotch.

Levi spins around on the spot, putting his back to Eren.

“Damn it. I was just trying to—this isn’t what it—damn it _._ ” Eren’s stuttering attempt at an explanation is accompanied by some uncomfortable shuffling sounds, then a hastily drawn zip.

“God,” Levi says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing creeping around in the middle of the night?” Eren hisses, apparently leaping straight from embarrassment to anger.

“Me?!”

“Ugh.”

There is a painfully awkward silence.

“I’m going back to bed,” Levi announces. Then, as an afterthought, “Sorry.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Levi stomps off, barely even using his walking sticks. Well, that was suitably humiliating. As he settles back into his bedroll in a huff, he tries diligently not to picture the way Eren was reclining between two rib bones, back arched in pleasure, with his hand shoved down the front of his unzipped pants.

It doesn’t work, and Levi gets no sleep at all.

 

 

The following day is uncomfortable, to put it mildly. Eren avoids Levi’s gaze like the plague. Levi finds himself deliberately trying to catch Eren out just to be petty.

Rain clouds gather in the afternoon. Levi wonders if Eren will force them to march straight through the storm rather than risk starting a conversation, but as the first drops begin to fall and the scents of wet soil and damp grass permeate the air around them, Eren finally relents. “We should take cover,” he mutters, eyeing Levi’s increasingly doomed attempts to navigate the wet ground on unsteady feet.

Levi just rolls his eyes.

They make for the nearest carcass. Eren grimaces when he realises their only option is to huddle in the colossal titan’s gigantic pelvic bone. Levi struggles to keep a straight face.

They silently peg an old tarpaulin across the ribcage for extra cover. Levi keeps one handy at all times, useful for a multitude of things, including preventing a soggy bedroll. The heavy atmosphere of unspoken recriminations grows between them.

Inevitably, it’s Eren who snaps first. “Look,” he begins, twisting the tarp in his hands. “What happened last night, well, I should have warned you. It’s not, um, easy—”

“Eren,” Levi interrupts, exasperated. “Trust me, after fifteen years alone, I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

“But it’s humiliating!”

“Getting caught jerking off when there’s only one other living person in the world _is_ pretty humiliating,” Levi agrees, opening up his backpack to sort them some lunch. “I thought I trained you better than that.”

Eren covers his face with his hands. “Ugh.”

“Don’t sweat it, Eren. I don’t give a fuck.”

It’s not exactly the truth – Levi can’t get the image out of his head, if he’s honest, and is beginning to wonder if he ought to set aside some time for _himself_ to take care of his body’s urges – but really he’d just rather forget about the whole thing. When did Eren get so handsome, anyway? Fuck, Levi has been alone for far too long. He gives himself an inward shake and starts counting out their ration of travel biscuits.

The rain lasts all afternoon, so they give up on making any further progress that day and decide to spend the evening in the makeshift shelter of the titan carcass, whose huge skeletal structure gives some measure of relief from the incessant drip, drip, drip of raindrops.

Levi gets a small fire going with spare firewood.

“How much stuff do you even have in your pack?” Eren asks, bewildered.

Levi cocks his head to one side. “What did you put in yours?”

“Um, spare underpants? Oh, and some tins of peaches I found at the back of the church. Uh…”

“Did you bring the tin opener?”

“There… was a tin opener?”

 _Five years!_ Levi thinks in mute disbelief. _Five years he was in my squad!_

It’s impossible to hunt any game for the evening, so they make do with fresh-cut apples, dry biscuits, and the syrupy peaches from Eren’s pointlessly heavy tins which Levi spears open using his knife.

The awkward silence returns. Eren looks glum, cheeks pink from the damp wind gusting through their small camp. He is picking morosely at his food. The dapple of firelight and shadow is pretty across his features, those big eyes, those fine cheekbones, the determined set of his lips.

 _Damn it,_ Levi thinks. _He looks good_.

He puts down his dinner and stands up. Eren’s eyebrows wrinkle into a delicate frown.

Running his hand through his hair, Levi lets out a deep sigh. “Are you going to make me beg?”

Eren’s frown deepens. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I’ve been alone for _fifteen years_ —” Humiliatingly, Levi’s voice cracks, and he swallows hard. “Do I have to spell it out?”

Eren’s brain seems catch up with what’s going on. He practically stumbles over his own feet to throw his arms around Levi. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says.

“Mmff,” Levi replies, face smushed against the fur-covered musculature of Eren’s chest.

“I’ll do anything you want, Levi,” he declares in a rush, biceps warm around Levi’s shoulders. “God, this is all fucked up. I’m so sorry I left you alone.”

Levi places his hand on Eren’s chest, fingertips grazing the hot skin at the juncture of Eren’s collarbones where his shirt lies open. Eren’s heart is pounding. _He’s so alive_. Giving a little push, Levi puts some distance between them. Eren stares down at him in confusion, arms going slack. _Fucking dopey brat._

“I wasn’t after a hug, you blithering idiot,” Levi says.

“O-oh.”

Levi focuses on the flutter of Eren’s pulse in his throat, the strong lines of his neck, working up courage _because_ _he’s very out of practice._  He uses his forefinger to pluck open a button on Eren’s shirt.

Eren sucks in a breath.

“Say if you want me to stop,” Levi mutters, focused on the next button down. “I know I’m an old man now, but—”

Eren mumbles something practically inaudible, a blush beginning to creep over his cheekbones.

“Hm? What was that?”

“I said you’re gorgeous.” Eren clears his throat and he tentatively pulls Levi close again. “You’ve always been gorgeous.”

“Tch. We’re the last two people alive,” Levi points out wryly, to distract from his own no doubt hideous blush. “It’s me or the local wildlife.”

The thing is… he’s still angry, but the anger is a muted, low-simmering presence in the back of his mind, almost wholly subsumed by the boiling intensity of his loneliness. He craves touch, the warmth of another person, the relief of skin-on-skin. Over the years, having Eren right in front of him, a non-skeletal human body _right there_ yet forever out of reach behind the walls of his crystal prison… it was torture.

He feels as though he’s practically vibrating with the need to hold and be held. To just forget for one damn second what has happened.

Is he using Eren? Probably. He doesn’t know. Before all of this, before the world went to hell, there had been tender feelings. Once, those feelings might even have been more. Hard to say, really; everything moved so fast back then. Levi rarely had time to stop and consider the matters of his heart, and Eren grew so distant so quickly. Annoyingly, he still has those old protective urges, frustrating urges which compel him to drag Eren’s crystal halfway across the island so it will be safe, urges that make him want to soothe away Eren’s pain rather than take revenge for the human race. _What is wrong with me?_ Levi thinks.

When he plucks open the final button on Eren’s shirt, hand skimming over the waistband of his pants, Levi is treated to the vision of a warm, tan, muscular chest, breathing heavily because, well, it’s probably been a long time for _both_ of them. What with Eren going insane and all.

“I didn’t realise—well, what I mean to say is, if I’d have known—it was hard to tell—”

“What _are_ you rambling on about?” Levi asks, fingertips beginning to dance up the hard ridges of Eren’s abdomen.

Eren takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “I didn’t know that you were attracted to men.”

Levi feels his lips quirk. “I’d be shit out of luck if I wasn’t.”

“I suspected, you know, with um, you and Commander Erwin, but—”

Levi groans and removes his hand. “Eren, are we going to do this or what? Because bringing up the dead isn’t likely to do wonders for my mood. Do you want to have a nice chat about Hange before we get going? Mikasa? Armin?”

Eren chews his lip and stares. “Alright,” he says slowly. “Touchy subject. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a touchy subject,” Levi tells him, frustrated. “I just want to forget for a while.”

“Noted.” The sudden mischievous determination blazes in Eren’s eyes has Levi fighting down a smile. “So how do you want me, sir?”

Levi begins unbuttoning Eren’s pants. “Naked,” he says matter-of-factly.

Eren moans, the deep throaty sound of a gorgeous young man getting horny, and Levi’s lips part in response.

Things get out of hand after that. Suddenly Eren is trying to kiss Levi, then Levi is pushing Eren to the ground. He tugs Eren’s shirt aside, fingernails scratching at the expanse of smooth skin. Eren’s back arches, eyes screwing shut.

“Is this what you like, Eren?” Levi presses a bit harder, hard enough to leave slow-blooming red marks. “You like me touching you?”

“Yes, yes,” Eren says with a whimper. It feels like his whole body is quivering beneath Levi’s spread thighs.

Levi leans down, bringing their upper bodies into contact. “You’re like a furnace,” he observes. “You’re burning up.”

“Are you cold, Levi?”

Somehow, Levi doesn’t think Eren is talking about the early winter chill nipping at their cheeks. “I am,” he admits into the bare skin of Eren’s collarbone.

Levi cannot remember the last time getting off wasn’t just some perfunctory thing, a brief pause in the daily toil of hunting, scavenging, and exploring to knock one out before getting on his way. He’d tried to indulge, once or twice, to slow things down – this world is pretty fucking boring after all – but he’d be halfway through and suddenly remember that everyone was dead, and the sexual acts and old crushes he was imagining would never be a part of his life again.

Kind of a mood killer.

“Mind if I…?” Levi skims his palm over Eren’s belt buckle.

Eren bites his lip and nods.

He takes his time divesting Eren of his clothes, trailing delicate touches and teasing pinches over every inch of tanned perfection. Eren is delightfully responsive, gasping and writhing. Levi shoots him a wry smirk as he tugs off damp socks, pressing his thumbs into the arches of Eren’s feet. “You look like you’re about to get off from a foot massage.”

“You don’t understand,” Eren says, hands clutching at the discarded clothes beneath him. “You don’t know.”

“What don’t I know, Eren?”

“ _Please_ , Levi,” Eren begs.

Levi gives up stalling and quickly shucks his own clothes. He crawls up Eren’s body, and Eren rises to meet him, pulling him close, surrounding him with warmth. Levi gets comfortable in his lap. The sensation of bare skin against his own is a luxury, a long-abandoned dream. He’s trembling.

Eren tries to kiss him again, and this time Levi lets him, curious despite himself. How does Eren kiss? The answer is: exactly as Levi would have expected. Wet, passionate, a little too enthusiastic. Levi’s heart lifts in response, because Eren is so alive, _so alive_.

They part to catch their breath. Levi untangles his hands from Eren’s unruly hair. “You kiss like a teenager,” he grouches, wiping his mouth.

“Oh no. Whatever will people think?”

Levi cannot help but grunt in amusement. “Oi. Stop dicking around. Can you reach my pack? There’s some fancy Marleyan lube in there.”

Eren stretches out his arm, gamely trying to bridge the distance. The pack is six feet away.

“Fuck it,” Levi decides, impatiently shoving his hand down between them. “We’ll make do for now.”

“How roman—”

Further words are cut short by Eren’s guttural groan. Slowly but surely their bodies find a rhythm that works. At some point, one of them admits defeat and crawls over to get the lube anyway.

By the time they curl up together beneath the bedrolls, Levi can’t help but be a little thankful that no one but the local wildlife was around to hear.

 

 

The next morning, Levi watches Eren sleep as the mist slowly rises with the dawning sun. A frown twists Eren's graceful features, his dreams evidently disturbing him. He looks troubled. Levi rolls forward and presses suggestively into Eren’s backside. “Can I?” he murmurs, breath ghosting over the nape of Eren’s neck.

“Yes,” Eren whispers, body unwinding.

Levi’s palm snakes around the jut of Eren’s hip bone. There is very little need for talking after that.

 

 

The addition of regular sex to their travelling routine does wonders for Levi’s mood. He feels almost jaunty. Eren seems lighter too. Oh, he’s still riddled with determination to reach the ocean and do whatever it is he plans to do, but occasionally he will put his arms around Levi and nuzzle the top of his head. At night, he makes Levi cry out in pleasure beneath the stars.

Levi doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

One evening by the campfire, Eren grabs Levi’s leg and tries to massage his swollen ankle. Reflexively, Levi kicks him off. “What are you doing?”

Eren stares for a moment. “You’re in a lot of pain.”

“No I’m not.”

The look Eren gives him is withering.

Levi refuses to let Eren touch his ankle again, but when he can barely stand one morning due to an overnight frost, Eren simply kisses his cheek and trails deliberate fingers down to his inflamed joint. This time, Levi lets him.

He begins to think about forgiveness and trust, concepts he had believed long dead and well buried when it came to Eren. Can you forgive someone for destroying the human race? Maybe Eren wasn’t in his right mind. Maybe something went wrong in that final battle, and Eren wasn’t in control— maybe, maybe, maybe.

It hurts Levi’s head to think of it, but his heart is telling him loud and clear to have a little faith. Out here, where undulating hills of windswept green grass make everything seem silent and peaceful, it’s hard to hold on to anger.

Eventually, despite Levi’s hobbling and Eren pretending he doesn’t have to slow down to accommodate it, they reach the old harbour of Paradis.

Levi would avoid this place if he could, but it’s where the battle took place. It’s where he woke up surrounded by shattered crystal and a decaying world fifteen years ago. Ultimately, whatever happened back then, it’s where humanity had died, so it seems appropriate to preserve it.

Plus he keeps his boat here.

The harbour is as Levi has known it for the past fifteen years, but for Eren this is a new world.

Eren sucks in a sharp breath when they arrive, and Levi understands. Whether or not Eren realised it, their journey along the train tracks from the church had been a sanitised version of the world Levi first woke up to. Over the years – out of boredom, or some deeper urge to recover a small bit of the world for himself — he’d planted his trees, but more importantly, he’d cleared the bodies. Not the colossal titans, not even Levi is that strong, but the humans.

“I remember standing over there on the docks,” Eren says after a while. He peers at his own hand, the smooth unbroken skin at the juncture of his thumb and forefinger. He looks lost in the distant past. “I wish I could remember…” He trails off, frowning.

On the rise above the harbour, you can see it all. The giant carcasses crisscrossing the beach, the barnacle encrusted hulls of sunken ships, and between them, like a constellation of milk-white stars, the soldiers who fought here. They are just bones now, only bones.

They were bones when Levi woke up, dead and decomposed long before he scratched his way out of that damn crystal. It's difficult not to wonder how long he was in there. The only answer he will ever get is _a long time_. Long enough for the wind and rain to do their work and strip the dead bodies of their tissue. Long enough for the world to die.

“Is that—?” Eren is shielding his eyes from the daylight, peering out across the clifftops. “Levi, what is that?”

He doesn’t wait for Levi to reply, instead taking off towards the rows of evenly spaced wooden crosses in the distance, temporarily forgetting his pretence of being a slow walker. Levi sighs and limps after him. He never imagined having to share this place with anyone.

Eren stalls when he gets to the graveyard, falling to his knees. Levi catches up just as he’s reaching out to stroke the scrap of weathered fabric tied around one of the crosses. If one squints, it might once have been red velvet.

“Her scarf was long gone by the time I woke up,” Levi explains awkwardly. “I found this material in one of the Sina manor houses.”

Eren nods, face hidden from Levi.

He shuffles towards another cross, gingerly picking up a bejewelled bolo tie, its leather lace replaced with disposable twine.

“ _That’s_ the original. I thought he’d like to be out here in some capacity, even though we buried him back in Mitras. I couldn’t mark all of them, but…” He notes that Eren is now peering at the furthest cross, the one placed nearest to the cliff edge overlooking the ocean. There is a tattered book wedged between two stones at the base. “I did what I could.”

The rows and rows of crosses have been Levi’s project for a long time. Every year, before taking his little chug boat across the ocean, he stops to build a few more, though he has a way to go before there will be enough for every human body down on the beach. In the early days he vowed to himself that if he ever got to the stage of ending it all, he’d string a rope around his neck and toss himself off this exact cliff, as close to them all as possible.

A strangled sob pulls Levi out of his reverie. Eren stands abruptly and walks off.

Levi thinks about following, but figures if Eren has gone off to have a cry, someone interrupting might not be welcome. Instead he sits down and dangles his legs over the cliff, sorting through their remaining provisions to cobble together a bit of lunch.

 

 

Later, he spies Eren making his way through the carnage of skeletons down on the beach, a tiny spot of restless movement. Levi is beginning to question if he has the energy to go down there and keep following Eren. He values life, and Eren destroyed life. How can he ever get over that? But Eren is alive too. They might well be the _last_ two people alive. Levi’s not sure he can give up on that either.

With a deep sigh, he grabs his sticks. He’s a sap.

“We should cross the ocean,” Eren announces when Levi pitches up beside him, wobbling on the shifting dry sand.

“There’s nothing out there, Eren. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

Eren makes a noise of disagreement, eyes trained on the distant blue horizon. “We’ll look harder. There has to be someone out there. There has to be.”

Levi knows that look. And he knows the disappointment it will lead to. Gently, he puts his hand on Eren’s shoulder. “It’s time to give up.”

Eren slaps his hand off. “No! If you think I’d give up _now_ , then you never even knew me at all.”

Levi stares at the back of Eren’s head. Ouch _._ “So, what are you planning to do, repopulate the human race?” he asks huffily. “I hate to break it to you, but we’re not exactly equipped—”

“Oh, fuck _off_.” Eren turns to glare at him. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

Levi takes some deep breaths. “Look, Eren,” he says slowly. “I forgive you. It’s okay. You don’t have to prove anything. What’s done is done, but we can move on.”

Eren blinks. “You still think I did it.”

“The evidence is right in front of us. I thought it might jog your memory,” he admits.

“I have no more memory of that final battle than you do.” Eren turns away from him, hunching up his shoulders protectively. “Is that it?” he asks, nodding towards the patch of shattered blue crystal sparkling in the sand. “Is that where you woke up?”

Levi allows the change of subject, not quite trusting himself to speak lest he destroy all the tentative closeness they have discovered.

Eren marches over, intent on examining the area for… clues or some shit, fuck if Levi knows. He trails along behind him, pretending to search as well. “Your crystal was over there,” he says, pointing out a spot in the shadow of an enormous skull he knows from memory.

Eren grunts and heads off to investigate.

Levi considers going to check the supplies on his boat. He never really runs out — how could he, being the last person alive? — but he does still have to drag the oil drums out of the harbour warehouses and anchored ships for fuel, a laborious process.

“Wait,” Eren says, getting down on his knees. “There’s something here.”

Levi peers over his shoulder. Eren is scrabbling at the sand, raking it into piles to reveal what looks like a thin, jagged strand of crystal, barely a few fingerwidths in diameter.

“Did you know this was here?” Eren asks.

“No.”

Together, they dig out the sand and follow the line of crystal. It soon becomes obvious where it will lead. The strand, while buried deep beneath the sand, connects the space where Eren’s crystal used to be with the splintered remnants of Levi’s crystal from fifteen years ago.

Eren sits back on his heels. “I _knew_ it,” he says, eyes big and wide. He runs his hand through his hair, mussing it up. “Do you understand what this means?”

“You trapped me in a crystal?”

“Yes!”

Levi frowns, picking up a piece of the blue stone. He doesn’t really understand.

“It means I _saved_ you,” Eren explains.

Once upon a time, Levi might have been rather sceptical of such a claim, but he finds himself believing Eren now.

“I couldn’t be sure, before,” Eren continues. “This might have been something that was done _to_ us. But now—” He pauses for half a second. “Levi, unless I go back into a crystal, I only have a few years left. Something went wrong in the battle, don’t you see? I had to abandon the plan and save who I could.” He points down to the newly-uncovered crystal. “This is a clue. It shows it’s possible to preserve more than one person. I have six titan shifters, Levi, but there are three still missing, and one of them is the female titan.”

Levi frowns. They had left Annie in her usual place, unconcerned after many years, knowing that Eren could simply crack her open once he got a hold of the jaw titan from the battle. “Do you remember anything at all?”

“No,” Eren admits. “But in my heart I know that’s what happened. I saved you, and I saved myself. And it wasn’t because I was hoping to get lucky.”

Levi lets out a snort of laughter despite himself.

“Levi,” Eren says, voice growing soft. “I would never hurt you. Not deliberately. If I saved us, it’s because I thought you were the best person to help me put things right. All I’ve _ever_ wanted to do is put things right.”

“Why me? Why not Mikasa?”

Eren looks up at the clifftop graveyard. “Sometimes there are no good choices,” he replies, a deep well of sadness beneath his simple words.

Well, Levi can agree with that at least.

Eren takes his hand. “You’re still alive. That alone tells me I made the right choice.” He squeezes Levi’s fingers, warming them between his palms. “Who else could spend fifteen years alone and not give up? You never give up. I’ve never seen you falter, not once. You’re the strongest person I know. You… you grew an orchard.”

Peering down at their joined hands, Levi finds himself swallowing down his emotions. He has to order himself not to cry.

“Levi, I promise you. I _promise_ I didn’t do this.” Eren’s eyes never leave his.

Levi shakes his head in distress, the ground feeling inexplicably unsteady beneath him. “It doesn’t make any sense, Eren,” he says. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.” Eren looks up at the skeleton, the towering skull of the colossal titan casting shadows across his face. “All evidence points to me. I know that. The rumbling, the crystal, my missing memories.” He gently brushes Levi’s hair from his eyes. “Saving you.”

Levi looks away.

“I don’t blame you for blaming me. In your shoes, _I’d_ blame me. But Levi—” he grips Levi’s shoulders, and all Levi can do is look back and get lost in those earnest eyes “—I _swear_ to you, this was not me. You know me, Levi. You _know_ me. I’d never do this.”

“Eren—”

“Please.” Eren’s eyes are watery with unshed tears. “Please, Levi. Please believe me.”

Levi is not made of stone. He never _wanted_ to believe Eren did this. Even he can admit his blame has become a crutch over the years, something to hold him upright, to prevent him from falling into bottomless despair.

It is a relief, finally, to let it go.

“Alright,” he says. “I believe you.”

Eren’s answer is a kiss. Soft, just a tender press of lips-on-lips, lacking the urgency of their nightly trysts. Levi feels hot tears against his cheeks. He kisses back, stroking Eren’s windswept hair, and tastes salt on his lips.

When they part, Eren is crying so hard his nose is dripping. Levi clicks his tongue, feeling hopelessly fond, and pretends to be busy while Eren pulls himself together and gets cleaned up with a spare handkerchief.

“So, what do we do now?” Levi asks after a while. “How do we find the truth?”

Eren’s shoulders straighten. Levi is surprised by the intense scowl that crosses his still-puffy features, the look of absolute fury. He hasn’t seen that in _years_.

“What we do now,” Eren says with utter conviction, “is find my brother.”

Levi blinks. “Your brother? You really think he’s still alive?”

Eren taps the crystal. “I _know_ he’s still alive.”

“Oh.”

For long seconds, Levi mulls over his response. He looks for a spark of the old strength, smothered somewhere beneath the apathy, searches for the remnants of a determination which once matched Eren’s. He tries to excavate the hatred of Zeke Jaeger which he has buried over the years alongside the rest of his hopes and dreams.

Alas, he cannot find it. Levi is too old to bother with putting the world to rights.

Yet, looking into Eren’s burning green eyes, he feels something else. Not bitterness or rage, but an emotion much more surprising. He feels an ancient spark of hope.

Eren looks so determined to fix this. So beautiful and fiery, everything that fascinated Levi in the first place. A passion he has always wanted to nurture. A raw energy which makes him want to fight. So, maybe Levi doesn’t need to do this for himself anymore. He’s made his peace with the end of the world, he’s had years to do so.

But perhaps he can do this for Eren, who still sees a way to the future, improbable though it may be.

“Alright,” Levi says, giving in. “Grab my sticks then, brat. Let’s go find your damn brother.”

For the first time since waking up, Eren smiles. Eyes blazing, teeth bared, almost manic. It’s a smile that could scare titans.

Levi has missed it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback and kudos are always appreciated <3


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